Category: Government Finance
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Herring Rises as McAuliffe Falls
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Electoral process, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s ruling that undocumented Virginians who entered the state as children can qualify for in-state college tuition is another bold and praiseworthy effort to drag the Old Dominion into the new age. His comments on gay marriage this winter foreshadowed a U.S. district judge’s decision in Norfolk that…
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Virginia: a Bastion of Financial Literacy
Virginia is the third most financially literate state in the country, according to a new Wallethub survey that combines metrics of personal financial behavior and public policy indicators. New Hampshire and Utah rank No. 1 and No. 2, while Arkansas and Mississippi rank at the bottom. “Financial literacy ultimately comes down to familiarity with key themes and…
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A Frenchman Turns Economics Upside Down
By Peter Galuszka Call it “The Anti-Baconomics.” Thomas Piketty, a French economist, is turning conventional, conservative economic thinking on its head. Goodbye to the idea that all boats rise in capitalism. What we are seeing instead is a dangerous concentration of 21st century wealth in the hands of an ever-smaller elite. This is Piketty’s message…
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April Is The Cruelest Month
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka April is the cruelest month, especially for brutal energy disasters. This Sunday is the fourth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling blowout that killed 11 and caused one of the country’s worst environmental disasters. April 5 was the fourth anniversary of the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion in West Virginia…
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An Inconvenient Obamacare Truth
By Peter Galuszka It is highly amusing to watch Obamacare detractors mock news that the Affordable Care Act has more than reached it goal by signing up 7.1 million Americans. This inconvenient truth turns the Fox News echo chambers on its head. You also read a bit of that on this blog – there’s an…
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Why Five Ex-Attorneys General Are So Wrong
By Peter Galuszka The practice of law in Virginia is supposed to be an honorable profession. The state, which produced such orators as Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, loves its lawyers perhaps much more than individuals who actually create or do something of value. It could be why the state has so many of them.…
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Is Virginia Now the “Mother of Dictators?”
By Peter Galuszka One of the serious problems in this state that has been called the “Mother of Presidents” is that its electoral process is in many ways anything but a democracy. In far too many districts, especially rural and suburban ones, gerrymandering and autocratic party diktat mean that the races are utterly non-competitive and…
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McDonnell’s U.S. 460 Debacle
By Peter Galuszka Towards the end of his term, former Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his transportation chief, Sean Connaughton, bulldozed through a dubious project that would build a superhighway from Suffolk to Petersburg along the path of old U.S. 460 in southeastern Virginia. Few understood the urgency of such a project, which involved a…
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Coal Giant Alpha Pays Biggest Water Fine Ever
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & TechnologyBy Peter Galuszka Alpha Natural Resources of Bristol, the coal giant that took over troubled Massey Energy of Richmond in 2011, has the dubious honor paying the highest fines ever of $27.5 million for water pollution violations at its coal mining operations in five Appalachian states, including Virginia. Massey Energy, the owner of the Upper…
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McAuliffe Peruses Tobacco Commission
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Environment, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Planning, Politics, Public safety & health, Science & TechnologyBy Peter Galuszka What’s going on with the Tobacco Commission? Gov. Terry McAuliffe wants to know and is asking for a detailed accounting of its finances over the past five years. The Tobacco Indemnification and Revitalization Commission, created in 1999 with a $1 billion endowment from lawsuit settlements with four major tobacco companies, has been…
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Dem Billionaire Runs With Big Dogs
By Peter Galuszka A major funder of Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe plans on putting $100 million into this year’s mid-term election races to warn of the danger of climate change and beat back global warming deniers and their conservative financiers. Tom Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund founder, plans on targeting the Florida gubernatorial race where…
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Calculate ROI on Pothole Repairs, Too
by James A. Bacon Del. Christopher Stolle’s transportation-prioritization bill (described here) has passed the House of Delegates and has been referred to the Senate Committee on Transportation. The bill would create a methodology for prioritizing the expenditure of transportation funds, including such factors as congestion mitigation, economic development, accessibility, safety, and environmental quality. Given the fact that…
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Tar Heel Grief Just Down the Road
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, LGBQT, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka It’s sad to see two states to which I have personal ties – North Carolina and West Virginia — in such bad ways. The latest raw news comes from the Tar Heel state where we are seeing the handiwork of hard-right- Gov. Pat McCrory who has been on a tear for a…
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The House Proposes Overhaul in Allocation of Transportation Dollars
by James A. Bacon In September House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, gave a major policy speech to the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce declaring that money alone cannot solve Virginia’s transportation problems. He called for a “new way” to think about those problems that relies heavily upon new technology and prioritization of projects by…
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Hmmm. Tastes Like Chicken.
Time to eat crow. The tax assessment numbers are in for Henrico County, and they are disappointing indeed — up only 2.8% from last year. (I blogged about Chesterfield’s assessment results yesterday.) I had suggested that soaring home sales prices would give a much bigger boost to the tax base, obviating the need for a…